A Paladin’s Update: February 2016 In Summary. Changing How I Purchase Games, Status of Upcoming Series and More.

For the past couple of months I’ve been considering the changes Steam has made to sales and how that affects the blog and how I buy games. I’ve more or less come to a conclusion. I used to buy games on mass in December both on GOG and Steam because that’s when they were generally the cheapest during the year. However, in 2015 we saw a pretty drastic change as the quality of sales on Steam were rather unimpressive. Especially when you consider a lot of those same sales happened during the Thanksgiving and then Chinese New Year sales. This is not surprising as the daily/flash sales were completely removed due to the refund policy. Honestly, I’m for this because I feel like game sales have gotten extremely ridiculous over the past couple of years. To buy 30 games for $5 that I’ll get 100+ hours out of is insane and not sustainable. The rise of Humble Bundle and bundles like it do give people a place for extremely cheap games and I’m ok with that too. But, I think it’s long overdue that we reset our expectations of what we price games for.

Anyway, that’s a much bigger topic for another time. In my case, I did that whole December buy-a-thon because I’m not exactly rich and it would allow me to buy games that I could play for the rest of the year. However, this is also kind of back firing on me now. Now, I’m more clued into what games are coming out on a regular basis. I pay attention to Steam and GOG a lot more. As such, there have been games that have come out in the past couple of months such as Firewatch, Stardew Valley, Superhot and more. I’ve wanted to play them but have been unable to because, well, one I spent a “ton” of money on games recently and two, I have a lot of games to tackle first. This kind of inflexibility bothers me. Especially since I’m starting to get attention from other indie developers the more reviews I create. And this “getting through a glut of games” is just not a good idea for my psyche.

As such, I’m just going to finish out the games that I have bought and buy them on a more regular basis and in smaller bunches. Probably every other sale that comes up and just the games I know I’ll be playing soon. This won’t necessarily change the review format I’ve built up nor the timing for those reviews. It’s more for financial sanity and flexibility. It’s not like I’m going to “run out” of games to play anyway because even if I get into a rough spot, I have quite a few grand strategy and RTSes to play until I can get new ones. Anyway, so that’s a bit of info from me, let’s get on with the actual blog stuff.

A Paladin Without A Crusade

February has been me getting into the groove of things. I was still slightly shaken from how “awful” I felt about my work in January but my three reviews in February were solid and enjoyable to do. Which has put me in really high spirits. I’ve already started work on my next big review and having an absolute blast with it. The Steam Curator has gotten a few more followers which has been nice to see. Oh and I’m going to be doing another podcast episode with Game Wisdom tomorrow so expect to see that coming out soon.

Otherwise, I’ve been working on getting the System Shock 2 series edited and out there. I’ve finally gotten back to my perspective and am working on the last three hours of footage we recorded. The next series is still in the planning and artwork stages. But, it will be a streamed and then heavily edited series on YouTube. I mean, I did some light editing on System Shock to clean up some of the really dull parts. But I think I’m going to be doing 15 minute episode uploads with a lot of heavy editing and maybe even some “humor” thrown in for good measure. To make the series be a lot more enjoyable to watch. The humor part is still up in the air but I do want it to be more concise than my previous series have been. How I’ll manage that with a series that will be live-broadcasted I’m not entirely sure but it’ll be a fun experiment right? Right?!

Finally, yes, I’m still working on the Strategy series. I’ve had to put it on the backburner for another couple more months due to my depression really doing a number on me in February. I really want to keep making reviews every month and as such extra series like this one will always be delayed if I feel its important to do so. My goal at this point is to do the initial recording tests and start playing around with the idea physically. We’ll see if that actually happens >_<.

Rise: Battle Lines saw a surge in views for February to my surprise. Unsurprisingly, The Beginner’s Guide was pretty much a flop in terms of viewership and interest. I wrote and published that review knowing it wasn’t likely to get much attention. I don’t care though, it was a review I really wanted to write and I’m happy with how it ultimately turned out. There Came An Echo came out pretty late but it’s been doing pretty well based on my expectations.

What? No Huniepop at all on this list? Be still my beating heart. Oh sure, it’s still getting attention but these posts have far outweighed it this past month. I’m heartened to see my #WTFU post getting that much amount of attention. I suspect that #1 and #3 will start falling off the list this next month. Grey Goo continues to remain a popular review and so does Frozen Cortex.

Other Personal Items:

I think I’ve been honest enough for one post. I just finished up The Talos Principle and am starting to play Undertale and Cradle. Two very different kinds of indie titles. I’ve removed myself from League Conquest on SMITE. For very complex reasons but essentially: I’m not really enjoying the current direction with Conquest and this infects League to a much worse degree. I’ve been working on a post to put my reasons out there as to why I’m not doing it but I’ve run into several snags with it and I’m not sure if it’ll ever get published at this point. So, there’s that.

Still having a “fun” time finding a job. I’m hoping to start up some tech projects this month to take my mind off of that nonsense and get my self confidence back with technology. I’m really tempted to pick up a Raspberry Pi and heck, I probably could and not get hurt. Hmm, things to contemplate. I hope everyone is doing well this month.

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About A Paladin & Schedule

Welcome to my Gaming Review website. I've been creating content on a regular basis for over six years now but there's been a change. I'm currently on hiatus while I'm employed at a different job because I can't do that job and do this blog. There's no way I can do both and remain unbiased. I do not have a return ETA at this time but I thank everyone for their support over the years. It means a lot.